


Chilling Out: The Artificial Way

by vertigoo



Category: Total Drama (Cartoon)
Genre: Autistic Character, Be More Chill au, Bisexual Character, Gay Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-07-31 01:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20106982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vertigoo/pseuds/vertigoo
Summary: Cody isn’t the coolest kid in school. In fact, he’s far from it. He’s autistic, he’s bi, he plays video games with his best friend Owen in his basement eating three packets of Cheese Supreme Doritos and has a deadbeat dad. Normal uncool kid things.But then something changes. A chance. A chance to be cool, popular, and maybe, just maybe, get his crush, Noah, to go out with him. Or notice him. Either works. And does he take it?You bet he fucking does.[ON HIATUS]





	1. More Than Survive

**Author's Note:**

> What’s up everyone, it’s ya boi, back at it again with another fanfic.  
I’m sorry that I haven’t updated Camp TV in over a month. I KNOW I said Chapter Eleven would come out sooner than Ten, but that was a lie. Clearly. As the episodes go on they get harder to write since so much changes, but I wanted to show to everyone who doesn’t follow me on Tumblr (pssst, I’m totalcodyisland) that I am, in fact, alive.  
I’ve had this in my drafts for a while collecting dust and people told me I should post it, so here it is! It’s not going to be my main priority, don’t worry, that’s still Camp TV, but I may post a new chapter whenever I feel like it, just to get something out there.  
Jason out!

Cody switched on his ancient-looking PC, shoving a shirt over his head as the disc began to spin. He typed in his password, his arms stuck up in the air as his shirt got caught on his ears. Once it was finally on properly, he checked the time. 20 minutes until his bus arrived. Shit.

The brunette clicked the file he wanted over and over again, as if doing so would speed it up. Then… the video had to load. Damn it. “Come on, come on… go, go!” Cody groaned as he watched the loading bar slowly crawl along the bottom of his screen, every so often glancing at the time.

With his head feeling ready to explode, Cody shut off his monitor as he realised he had five minutes left before the bus arrived, shoving his bottle of lotion back into the drawer his dad never checked. He quickly shoved on the closest pair of pants he could find. “God, now I’m going to be uncomfortable all day…” he muttered, tossing his backpack on.

“Not like that’s any different from normal.” He snorted at his own self-deprecating joke, earning a weird look from his dad, who was… wearing no pants… “God, Dad! Haven’t you heard of pants?!” 

His dad smiled and sipped his cup of coffee. Falling out of the spotlight hadn’t treated him very well, and his divorce had only made it worse. “Chef didn’t mind it when I didn’t wear pants…” He mumbled, looking down at the cup in his hand sadly.

Cody sighed. This always happened, every single morning. “Just… please put on a pair before I get home, okay?” His dad nodded, although it was clear he wasn’t paying attention. He made his way out of the house and down the driveway, before stopping.

He could feel his stomach begin to flip and his face go red. Why did choosing how he wanted to get to school be so nerve-wracking? Why couldn’t he just stay at home and wait for his… videos... to load? That’d be way more relaxing. Cody took a deep breath and weighed out his options.

There were pros and cons to both. The pros of walking would be complete isolation; there would be no one to mock him or insult him if he walked. However, his boxers would get all bunchy and he’d smell worse than the school’s star athlete after a homecoming game. The opposites were true for the bus.

So maybe it wasn’t as hard of a decision as he’d originally thought.

Unwrapping a breakfast bar covered in enough caramel drizzle to completely drown out whatever benefits it may have had, the one he’d had in the front pocket of his backpack just in case he was going to be late, Cody ran down to the bus stop just as it pulled in and hopped on. He held his head down as he walked down the aisle, taking a seat by himself and staring out the window. 

His thoughts drifted off as he watched the houses pass by. To be something more… to do more than  _ survive _ , just anything more than that. It’s not like he wanted to be George Clooney or Rob deNiro or anything else extreme like that, he just wanted to be something a little  _ more _ . So why wasn’t he?

The next thing he knew, the bus had stopped, and all of the other kids were making their way off the bus. He gripped his backpack straps so hard his knuckles were turning white, walking through the school gates. As he entered the main building, he couldn’t help but overhear Heather, Lindsay, and Beth, gossiping in the corner.

“So, Beth said Dakota told Trent, ‘I’ll only have sex with you if you beat me at pool’,” Heather tucked a strand of her short black hair back behind her ear. It was still recovering after it had all been shaved off at a Halloween party last year, “and then she lost at pool,  _ deliberately _ .”

“That is so awesome!” Lindsay cheered, clapping her hands together happily.

“Lindsay!”

“I-I mean slutty!”

“And then, Dakota was all like-” Beth began.

“I’m telling the story,  _ Beth _ .” Heather hissed, looking over to the shorter girl. In the distance, she noticed Cody staring at the group and recoiled in disgust. “Oh my god. He’s like, totally getting off on that.” The group ran off and Cody continued through the halls, keeping his head down.

Unfortunately for Cody, that meant he had no idea who he was about to bump into. “Ugh! Don’t touch me, short-ass!” Duncan said, glaring at the smaller boy.

“Sorry, I-I was just trying to get to my-”

Duncan interrupted his apology by spinning Cody around and grabbing out a marker, scribbling something on his backpack. “You wash this off, you’re dead.” He said, before walking off towards one of his friends. “Yo, Trent! What’s the deal with Dakota?” He wiggled his eyebrows, a smirk on his lips.

Trent smiled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Oh, man, I shouldn’t say…” His stance went from nervous to one of confidence as the tone of the conversation shifted, “But it’s a good thing I rock at pool.”

Cody continued to walk through the hallway, his head up high this time and his eyes flitting around nervously, wanting to avoid a repeat of his encounter with Duncan. Then, a poster at the end of the hallway caught his eye. He couldn’t read what it said, but it shone so much that it’s light could rival any star. 

Trying his best to remain unseen, Cody ducked and swerved between other students, avoiding eye contact as he could. Finally he was there, standing in front of the poster, an identical one right next to it for the literature club. “A sign-up for the after school play!” He whispered to himself. 

The smile that had been on his face disappeared. “More like a sign-up sheet for getting called gay.” Cody said, rolling his eyes before turning left to get to his locker, and there… “Noah…” He breathed, a dreamy smile on his face.

He watched as Noah walked past him, his face buried deep in whatever book he was reading. It was a new one every week, Cody had noticed, but he always finishes them much sooner than that. “Noah…” He whispered, a part of him wanting to talk to him whilst another wanted to run away before he did something weird.

That was the part he should’ve listened to.

Noah looked up and around, almost as if he was disoriented, before he saw Cody. “Did you say something?” He asked, one eyebrow raised. 

Cody’s eyes widened and his mouth opened and closed like a goldfish, trying to figure out what to say. “I- uh…” Cody pointed down the hall, before running off, finding an empty classroom to duck into close to his locker. He could hear Noah yelling out something behind him, but he chose to ignore it.

After catching his breath, Cody began running his hands through his hair, annoyed at himself. “Well, that was smooth! Yeah,  _ super _ pimp.” He hissed at himself, groaning afterwards. “My Mac Daddy game couldn’t be more limp.” Getting back up, he snuck out of the classroom and unlocked his locker, tossing his backpack inside and giving himself a little pep talk.

“I can’t dwell on it though I’ve gotta… pretend it never happened. Yeah. That’ll make everything fine.” That was when he noticed the writing on the back of his bag, squinting at it in confusion. “‘BOYF’? I don’t…” 

All of the other kids began shutting their lockers, running off to their classrooms as the time until first period started got shorter and shorter. Cody quickly gathered the things he would need, before shutting his locker and running off, completely forgetting the writing on his bag.

-

Finally, it was lunch. Mondays were always the worst for Cody, since he had no classes with his best friend of twelve years- “Owen!” He slung his backpack off his shoulders with enough momentum he almost knocked out the freshman who was unlucky enough to get in the way, but he didn’t notice.

“Cody! How’s it going? My mum gave me this killer sandwich, and my dad managed to get me a new water bottle that makes it easy to sneak in  _ whatever drink I want _ . Look!” The blonde teen waved the long metal container in his hands. Cody picked it up, and it was ice cold to the touch, causing him to yelp in shock. “Oh, sorry, man. I should’ve told you I put a slushie in there today.”

Cody smiled and took a seat next to his friend, putting his backpack up on the table. “It’s cool, don’t worry about it. So I’m guessing you’re having a good day?”

“Yeah, but you don’t seem like you are. What’s up?” That was the thing about Owen; over twelve years he’d managed to know Cody better than Cody did. It gets kind of scary sometimes, but he’s used to it now. 

Cody gestured towards his backpack, where ‘BOYF’ was still written, the black marker glaringly obvious on the baby blue fabric. “You’re better at English than I am. What’s it mean?”

Owen shrugged, staring at it for a couple seconds before his eyes lit up. He brought out his own backpack from under the table and rested it next to Cody’s. “My parents would be thrilled!” He chuckled. 

“‘BOYFREINDS’? It’s not even spelled right!” Cody groaned, placing his head in his hands. “I hate this school.”

“Hey, it’s all good.” Owen said, opening up Cody’s backpack and pulling out his lunchbox. “I saw on Discovery that humanity has stopped evolving!”

“And that’s good because…?” Cody popped open the lid of his lunchbox and popped a few tablets into his mouth, using Owen’s bottle to swallow them with some slushie. 

“Evolution is “Survival of the Fittest”, yeah?” Cody nodded, eating a couple of chocolate balls whilst Owen snatched up his sandwich. “Well now, thanks to technology, we don’t have to worry about that anymore! Which is especially good for me, since, you know…” Owen poked his tummy, which let out a low growl of hunger.

“But anyway, it also means there’s never been a better time to be a loser, or a social outcast, or just plain dorky like us!” Owen took a big bite out of the sandwich, practically halving it. “Why trying to be like Tyler, or Trent, or Duncan, or any of those other guys, when you could be-”

“Signing up for one of the clubs!” Cody said, sitting up straight in his seat.

Owen swallowed the rest of the sandwich. “Well, I was gonna say having a sleepover in my basement, but-”

“No, I mean,” Cody grabbed the sides of Owen’s head and showed him where he was looking, “look who’s signing up for one of the clubs!” 

Owen leaned forward and scrunched up his face, trying to tell who it was from the back. “Oh, is it Noah?” Cody gave him an unimpressed look, causing Owen to raise his hands up in a joking defensive pose. “Hey, I’m not the one who stares at him from behind during Science class!”

“How do you know I do that?” Cody hissed, shrinking back into his seat. 

“Come on, man, I know  _ everything _ about you.” Owen grinned, resting his head in one hand. “Like how you only talk in your sleep when-”

“Yeah, okay, I don’t wanna hear it.” Cody said, putting his hands over his ears and laughing as Owen pouted. The brunette glanced back over to the sign-up sheets hanging off of the board in the canteen. Noah was walking away now, his head back in the book he had been reading that morning.

Cody got up and walked over to the board, almost like he was entranced. He grabbed the blue pen stuck to the board with sticky tape, and began to scribble his name down onto the sign-up sheet he thought Noah had signed.

“Cody, what are you doing?” Owen whispered, his brow furrowed as he read the big sparkly font at the top of the sheet.

“Joining the club Noah’s in, duh.” Cody said, finally looking up to face his friend. “Why, is there something wrong?” 

Owen pursed his lips and looked at his friend, putting a hand on one of his shoulders. “Look, I don’t know how to tell you this, but-”

“GAAAY!” Cody and Owen spun around to see Duncan standing on the top of his group’s table, pointing at the two of them and laughing. Soon after, the rest of the cafeteria burst into laughter, and anyone who wasn’t busy giggling away were already spreading new rumours. 

Cody quickly glanced back at the sign-up shit, and his eyes widened as he read the title at the top of the sheet. “Ah,  _ shit _ . This isn’t the sign-up sheet for the literature club.” He muttered, biting his lip.

“Yeah, I tried to tell you that.” Owen guided his friend back to their lunch table and gave him his bottle. Cody accepted it gratefully and began to drink the slushie like he hadn’t had anything to drink in years. 

“It’s not like it’s insulting,” Cody said, his tongue turning purple from the slush, “because, you know, I’m bi. Well, it’s kind of insulting. God, why do people use sexualities as insults? It’s just so  _ weird _ .”

“I don’t know, man, but hey. It’s okay. I’m here for you dude.” Owen smiled, stretching his arms out to give Cody a hug, who was more than happy to hug him back. 

“Thanks, Owen. I know.” They pulled away from each other and began packing up their things, getting ready for the next class. “Besides, if a zombie horde breaks into the school, all of that teasing is gonna seem pretty pointless, huh?”

The two of them laughed, before getting up and leaving the cafeteria, ignoring the eyes and whispers following them. “So, are you coming over to my place tonight, or am I going to yours?”

“We went to yours on Saturday for the whole day, and after just signing up for the school play I didn’t even want to be in, I think I need some homely comforts, you know?” Cody said.

Owen snorted as if it were one of the funniest things he’d heard that day. “Yeah, like my place isn’t a second home to you by this point. Is your dad gonna be cool with it?” 

“Of course he is. You’re the favourite, and you aren’t even his son.” The two of them laughed again, and finally they were at Cody’s locker. “See you after school, buddy.”

Owen sent him a pair of finger guns before rushing off to his next class. Cody grabbed all the things he would need which, thankfully for his tired arms, wasn’t much. However he did have a French test in period six. Which he hadn’t studied for at all. Not so good.

But as long as he didn’t run into Duncan again, he was pretty sure he would survive.


	2. Love is a Pretty Strong Word

It was now Friday. Everything was just as it always had been, with Duncan and Trent teasing Cody and Owen, and Cody pining over Noah. But today was different. Today was the first school play rehearsal.

To say Cody was nervous to see what awaited him would be an understatement. He had been fidgety and jumpy for the whole school day, only making him the victim of even more ridicule than normal. Taking a deep breath and shoving his fidget cube back into a pocket in his hoodie, Cody opened the doors to the auditorium.

For a bit he thought he was in the wrong place. There was no one there except the one girl with bright red hair in one of the other classes, and she could have been there for whatever weird indie stuff indie people do. 

Cody checked the time and place again on his phone. This was… definitely it. It felt so-

“Underwhelming?” The girl asked from the stage. “Yeah. The play hasn’t exactly seemed the most attractive to people for the past couple of years. I think this year we’ve got nine people, including you, me, and our supervisor, Don.”

She hopped down and walked over, holding out her hand. “You’re Cody, right? I’m Zoey. The other guys always come in late, so don’t worry about them.” They shook hands, before walking back towards the stage.

When it wasn’t filled with people whispering conversations as the teachers made announcements in assembly or singing the national anthem, the auditorium was kind of creepy. It was so big, and it made Cody feel small. Smaller than he already was. That didn’t last too long, thankfully.

The doors to the auditorium were flung open and the missing seven walked in, talking and laughing like they weren’t ten minutes late to the first rehearsal. It was a mixed bunch; Cody’s former crush, Gwen (this would prove to be more awkward than he wanted after all), a tall lanky tanned kid with a gap in his teeth, and the only person who wasn’t Owen that would willingly sit next to him in class, Harold.

Don got up on stage and everyone took a seat, ready to hear what he had to say. “Welcome, everyone, to the first play rehearsal of the year! As most of you know, I am Don, the head of the drama department here at Wawanakwa High! This year we will be performing Romeo and Juliet-”

Zoey and a few other kids cheered until they were cut short by Don, “Or we were going to, until the school decided to cut the majority of our funding.”

“What?!” Zoey cried out. “But- but I’ve been waiting for this for as long as I can remember!”

“Well it looks like you’re going to have to keep on waiting, Zoey, because unless we make some serious profit this year you can wave this school’s annual plays goodbye.” Don sighed, rubbing his temples. “Thankfully, however, we aren’t the only people in this situation. The school has cut funding for the Literature Club too.

“That is why, for this year, the Literature Club and the after school play will be merging together to create our own original work of art!” Don held his hands up in the air, clearly expecting some sort of positive response. After nothing but silence, the teacher cleared his throat. “That was your cue.” He whispered to someone off stage.

“Sorry, sir, but Ms. Milton wasn’t here today,” A familiar voice said from the curtains, “and my peers don’t seem to take too kindly to instructions.” 

Cody tried his best to seem calm and collected as Noah walked onstage, followed reluctantly by a few other kids. Including Trent. Not good.

“But anyways, yes. We, the Literature Club, have rewritten Shakespeare’s famous work, Romeo and Juliet, to be about-” Noah was cut off by a loud cheer from Trent.

“Zombies! It’s gonna be about  _ zombies!  _ We all figured ‘hey, people like zombies, right?’ So now it’s about zombies!” One of the kids in the back let out a scream, clearly terrified of the concept, but nobody paid him much attention. Cody recognised him as one of the freshmen. They all seemed pretty weird, and that was saying something.

“Great! Well, since our clubs have the same amount of members, I’ll be pairing each of you off so that the drama club members can learn more about what we’re doing. Does that sound good?” Don didn’t wait for a reply. “Good! Now…”

Cody zoned out, completely blocking out what Don was saying. Zoey whispering into his ear, saying something about how she hoped to be paired up with her crush (Dawn? He thinks it was Dawn, but he couldn’t remember) didn’t really help. 

“...and Noah and Cody, you two will be working together.” Wait what. “These partners will be for this session only, so  _ please _ don’t bother trying to have them changed.”

Now Noah was walking over to him. Not good. What was he supposed to say? Oh god, oh god, oh god- “Hey, you’re Cody, right?” 

“Uh, y-yeah. I’m a little surprised you, uh, know me. Or remember me, I guess.” That probably wasn’t the right thing to say. Noah looked like he was having a flashback to freshman year camp. 

“Kind of hard to forget waking up and realising you were making out with one of your classmate’s ears.” Noah chuckled.  _ Shit _ , now he looked uncomfortable. “Well, let’s go find a place to sit down.”

Cody nodded, cursing himself mentally for being so awkward. He could barely look Noah in the eyes without getting flustered. He probably thought of him as an even bigger weirdo what with all his fidgeting and stuttering. Cody brought his fidget cube back out of his pocket in an effort to calm down.

Noah began explaining the play, but it all just turned into white noise in the back of Cody’s mind. All Cody could do was stare and play around with the buttons and switches on his cube. 

After Noah stopped and had been expectantly staring at Cody for a bit, Cody spoke up. “So, uh, you love books, right?”

Noah looked confused for a second, before laughing a little. Cody liked that. Even if he didn’t get why Noah was laughing. “Love is… a pretty strong word. I like books, but I wouldn’t say I  _ love _ them.”

“See, that’s weird to me,” Cody put his fidget cube back in his pocket and shifted to face Noah, looking down at his hands to make sure they didn’t do anything wrong as he began waving them around, “the ‘love is a strong word’ thing. And same with hate! I can’t just simply  _ like _ or  _ dislike _ something. It’s, like, go big or go home, you know?”

Noah nodded, his hand resting on his chin in a thinking pose. “So, if I asked you for your opinion on  _ Memory of Water _ , you’d say...?”

Cody pouted. “I  _ hated  _ that book. It was so boring! I don’t know how you managed to finish it  _ and  _ do multiple essays on it!”

“Well I guess that’s where you and I differ,” Noah said, smirking, “I didn’t like it, but I managed to see past how boring it was and get adequate grades for it. I’m guessing you didn’t?” Noah laughed again as Cody’s face turned red from embarrassment. 

Don called out to the students, clapping his hands to draw their attention to him. “Everyone, please, gather ‘round!” 

A small circle formed around Don. As the teacher began to talk about what they were doing next, Cody took the opportunity to look around the circle and see if there were any other people he hadn’t seen before.

The majority he didn’t recognise, but then he saw Heather, who had apparently seen him way earlier as she was glaring at him so intensely he was certain she was trying to set him on fire with some kind of unspoken curse. Lindsay was there too. 

Don clapped his hands, bringing Cody back to attention. “Now, to decide who gets which part! I’m sure you all already have someone you want to be in mind, so-”

The students erupted into conversation, everyone trying to claim their own part for the play. There were groups fighting over who would be Romeo and who would be Juliet, the yelling overwhelming Cody more and more as people began pushing and shoving each other to get to Don to say which part he wanted.

Finally, it was too much. Letting out a yell and covering his ears with his hands, Cody ran out of the auditorium, only stopping to pick up his school bag. He could faintly hear different people calling out to him, but it didn’t matter. He knew where he needed to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took an overwhelmingly long time and I apologise for that! I’m also sorry about how long the next chapter of Camp TV is taking. I’ve been low on motivation recently, but I’m back, baby!


End file.
